Magazine Archive

The transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy is underway. That’s good news for the planet as well as the disadvantaged communities that bear an outsized burden of the extractive economy. As we make this transition, now is the moment to make sure the emerging economic system addresses the injustices of the old. Our fall 2017 issue looks at specific paths toward a “just transition”—one built on inclusivity and equity.

Between ICE raids and xenophobic travel policies, immigrants increasingly live in fear and uncertainty. But there’s a groundswell of resistance—from cities and states to small communities and individuals. Our summer issue explores the compassionate defiance behind sanctuary. In standing together to protect vulnerable people, our communities are flexing the vital political and moral muscles of resistance.

Up against the White House’s “alternative facts” and attempts to hide climate data, can new allies—citizens and science—prevail against politicians and corporations? Climate science is looking like a new front line, and scientists are increasingly its freedom fighters. Citizens need to support them by engaging in daily research, demanding truth, and forcing government and industry to use research for the common good.

For our 20th-anniversary issue, we asked a dozen reporters to speak with hundreds of people around the country—activists, entrepreneurs, parents, politicians, religious leaders, scientists, students, workers—to bring you 50 of our favorite inspiring solutions. These are the ideas making the places we live more sustainable and inclusive—and bringing communities together.

Four out of 10 Americans work outside of the traditional 9-to-5, a rate that is growing fast. For workers, this "gig" work can feel both empowering and precarious. This issue looks at how we can bring out the best of the gig economy, but also protect workers. From cooperatives and online communities to "portable" work benefits, we can make the gig economy work for us.

From North Carolina bathrooms to the fight for the White House, sex, gender, and power are in the headlines. This issue takes us beyond breaking news for a closer look at the forces inviting us toward a more inclusive understanding of who women are and how gender works. You’ll discover that embedded in today’s feminism is a demand for the rights and dignity of all people.

The science is clear: we have to keep carbon in the ground. But what happens next? This issue looks at how we can get to a post-carbon world—from easy switches to big fixes—and what life will be like when we do. Getting off fossil fuels is daunting, but we found it may also be the key to a more joyful, connected, and fair way of life.

What nourishes a culture of good health? In this issue we explore how our vitality is affected by not only our bodies and minds, but also our society, our economy, our relationships, and our environment. The Good Health issue reminds us that our well-being is enmeshed with that of our community, and that to achieve real health, we must work together.

For many of us, debt plays such a negative role in our lives that it can be difficult to imagine what a positive relationship to debt might look like. This issue considers how our collective debts can be a source of solidarity to change an unfair economic system. Working together we can create lending and borrowing systems that enrich our communities.

Many hoped the election of President Obama meant we had achieved a post-racial society. The #BlackLivesMatter movement—responding to the killing of African Americans—is a clear indication that we have not. This issue explores how we can come to terms with our history, acknowledge the trauma, and take concrete steps to make things right.

So-called modern progress has depended on exploiting the Earth’s resources as if they had no end. We’ve lost touch with the ancient wisdom that we are partners with Earth and all life on it. Now is the time to reclaim our sacred connection with Earth, and to think deeply, radically, and personally about the best ways to keep this planet—and its millions of species—alive.

What is it about cities that enables them to move forward while the nation as a whole is stalled? An urban revolution has cities across the country becoming hotbeds of democracy and progressive innovation. Here are the most exciting ways cities are leading us into the future.

The gap between the wealthy and the poor widens daily in America. And the prevailing story says poverty is inevitable—a natural part of the human condition. In this issue we show how the richest country in history chose policies that create an impoverished underclass—and how different choices will end poverty.

We define our culture through the stories we tell—our family histories, our traditions, our shared experience. But sometimes it’s been a struggle to be heard over Big Media promoting the official version, and we’ve surrendered our stories to those with money and power. Today’s storytellers are finding new and creative ways to be heard.

For decades the myth of failing public schools justified industrial-scale testing and a privatization agenda. Now radical educators are bursting the bubble test, getting culturally relevant, and restoring justice to the classroom. Welcome to Education Spring.